Losing SaGa is disappointing. Unlimited soured the well and The Last Remnant could've been decent if it had only come out on the PC instead of leading off with that shitty 360 port.

Mana, however, hasn't had it's creator at the helm since Secret and since then the series has been going steadily downhill. SD3 was a decent copy of the formula, improved in some ways but messed up others. Legend was a very beautiful and very simplistic side-scrolling brawler with way too much emphasis on exploration for a game not designed for it, and also an OCD nerd's wet dream/nightmare in that forging/tempering bullshit. Sword was a remake that retconned it's source material into a pale shadow of its former self as well as bogging the game down into a massive grindfest with arbitrary game mechanics tacked on in the worst possible ways at every turn. And the entirety of the World compilation was filled with either shoddy generic crap or poorly conceived gimmicks wrapped up in a game. Also pretty much everyone of talent from the start of the series has long since been scattered to the ends of the video game industry.

The only reason why Dragon Quest is still around is that Horii and Toriyama are still on board. It's ridiculous how the series itself is so conservative that its managed to loop around into being fairly liberal by SE's standards.

And in all the Mana complaining, have people forgotten Children of Mana? Of course, because that game was mediocre at best. I compared it to a pretty girl with a sexy voice but a vapid personality. Fun for a couple of days, then I got bored.

This is truely sad news for sure. So with square basically releasing only their top most popular franchises and Namco not bothering to release their games outside japan anymore at all. Who is the top RPG dev we can look to? Atlus or NIS america? There is some great ports remakes and original RPGs on hand helds but on consoles they seem to be dying, this is more proof.

For me the problem is that most everyone involved in the creation of Squaresoft's most beloved games is gone now. They lost large chunks of employees and several creative powerhouses to Monolith Soft, Brownie Brown, Sacnoth / Nautilus, and a whole bunch of other splinter companies. Sakaguchi left to found Mistwalker, and Matsuno departed after Final Fantasy XII. Others like Uematsu, Mitsuda and Kato went freelance, and though they didn't completely sever their ties to the company, they certainly started to play a less prominent role.

Of course old people going out and new ones coming in is part of the life cycle of any company, but I'm not convinced SquEnix have gone out of their way to find adequate replacements for some of the fantastic talents they used to have. I don't think it's a coincidence that when they do do something right it's usually because of the involvement of some of the staff from their golden years, nor that Dragon Quest, which as Aeolus noted still has most of its original key staff, remains just about their most consistent series. Part of me wants to see them give another shake to older franchises, but part of me believes there's hardly anyone at the company capable of making something good out of them.

So, Square is suffering here and they will continue to make countless Final Fantasy spin offs when they could go back and possibly make another Einhander, a sequel to Threads of Fate, maybe even a new Tobal/Ehrgeiz/Bouncer type game. Since the merger of Square and Enix, the only games I can think of that were enjoyable were, Final Fantasy XII, XIII and Musashi Samurai Legend. I don't count VP 2: Silmeria and Nier since they were developed by Tri-Ace and Cavia Inc. Although with the Square Enix name branded on them, let's get a new Drakengard or Valkyrie Profile game.

^Not exactly likely to ever get a new Drakengard or Nier given how Cavia was sucked up into AQ Interactive which has since been bought out by Marvelous Entertainment. God only knows where Yoko Taro is and what horrible things he's planning to do the children characters of his next game.

And in all the Mana complaining, have people forgotten Children of Mana? Of course, because that game was mediocre at best. I compared it to a pretty girl with a sexy voice but a vapid personality. Fun for a couple of days, then I got bored.

I'm pretty sure that, at one time in the distant past, I've peg CoM squarely between Summon Night: Twin Age and From the Abyss in terms of mediocre dungeon crawlers on the DS. Has a better gimmick than FtA's sole gimmick (or anything for that matter) skill stealing (compared to Children's Pinball of Mana) but doesn't even compare to SNTA's multiple PC characters, more balance gameplay, and general ascetics.

And in all the Mana complaining, have people forgotten Children of Mana? Of course, because that game was mediocre at best. I compared it to a pretty girl with a sexy voice but a vapid personality. Fun for a couple of days, then I got bored.

I liked Children of Mana myself, though I can't say I remember much about it. Played through it once and never looked back.

Really, all it made me realize was that the Mana series was never one that was that great to begin with. Amazing storybook art style and music aside, the games have have basically stayed the same for a long time...except they seem to be removing more features constantly. With Legend, we lost the continuous, connected world, which is something I love, and then in Children there's very few extra skills to play with at all.

SaGa is no real loss, I still consider SaGa Frontier to be one of the worst jRPGs I have ever come across, never tried Unlimited, but as far as I know SaGa 2 was the only one that was half decent anyway. Mana is a shame though, but I'm fairly sure they'll make a new one eventually. Action RPGs are in popular demand these days so the Mana formula should still work.

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